Category: Slightly Burnt

There have been times in my life where I knew not where I was going. One minute I found myself wondering how I came to be here on earth. And I asked myself why? Happy times spent as a family unit and then thrust into isolation without mother and father. Is isolation time spent with aunts and uncles? With grandparents? You know what I talk about when I say the love is different. They care about you but not on that level as you do when you love the smell of your dad and his smiles and silly talk. I knew my family cared about me but I felt so lonely growing up. That small girl who no one explained to, “Hey, we got to take care of business so we can live, you know! But we’ll be back for sure!” This was also the time of my first sexual assault as a very young child with no one to run to.

My first guide in my life besides my father was my maternal grandmother, Julia. I loved her with all my being. Totally. She died 3 days after my third birthday. One minute she was there, the next gone. It ripped me. My grandfather was desolate. He was to go shortly after, a few years but still. It has been said that the ages between 0-3 are the years that a child is nurtured and learns security, love, comfort, confidence and making choices. Thank goodness for grandma. Where would I be without her.

The years pass by me and it’s all learning as this girl doesn’t listen. Too much control going on with parental units in the way of my mother and my stepfather. Maybe I did listen to them when I was young but I grew headstrong and did what I wanted. After all did I not have the freedom to do that when I was with my aunts and uncles and roaming the countryside. I had so much trouble happening in my head and not having direction was to run away time and time again. I left home at 16 as I had a job and lived with my brother for a time. I became pregnant at 17 and left school. My one saving grace, school. I blossomed there. I excelled under the guidance of my psychology teacher, Mr. Bianchini and the art teacher, Mr. Zipp. I understood the mechanics of the mind and gained high marks for that. Mr. Zipp seen a spark in me and I was to become the class model for those years in that big old high school. Mr. Bianchini asked me why I wasn’t returning to his class the last year and I didn’t have the heart to tell him that there and now that I was pregnant. I wasn’t brave enough. Would my life been different then the path I decided to take and follow my choices. I do not know. I had the child but did not attain the mother of year award. My parents stepped in and took him. After a time they adopted him. My heart broke. It broke into a million pieces. It sounds cliche. I was to have no contact with him. None. This is the way they wanted it.

I became homeless. Depressed. I discovered there was another side to life that knowing now would never, ever enter. Ever. I stole to eat. Raiding gardens, going into stores and stuffing a bag with whatever I could get. That time was not a good time but I was not to stay in that space for long. Entering into relationships hoping for security and receiving nothing gave me disappointment. Finding a house to live in with five other young people my age was to present huge parties. Not a stable life. But it was so much fun back then. And then it wasn’t. There were problems and once again I was homeless. I persevered. I moved for a time with my friends and found a job. Good old 7-11.

Time passes and in that air I have two more children and one to give up for adoption as this was the time I was living on the streets, sleeping on friends couches. Aimless. The third child I took courage and wanted more out of life. My father was still alive and came to see us in the hospital. I so loved this memory. My father was to pass on my son’s 3rd birthday year. Abusive relationship were to follow for me. My self esteem in shatters. There had been no time to grieve any thing that had passed. No time to grieve the son that was taken, the daughter I gave up for adoption and then my father. No. Time. To. Grieve. But I did find the courage and strength to overcome that man. That man that yelled and hurled abuse on me. I was to find a letter the other day of him writing from jail. How he was so sorry for hitting me. I have no memory of that. Absolutely no memory. He was very graphic and gave so many details but nothing sparked in my memory banks. Now is that a saving grace. I say yes to that. I had to find this guidance on my own and crawl out of that hole.

Life does indeed go on and sometimes at a snail’s pace and sometimes in light streaming down the road. I have had trauma, but also joy mixed in with mine. It has not all been bad. There was the joy of having my children. The happiness of my heart seeing my 3rd child grow. It has all been an experience and for this life class I have been in to be used for people that are going through the same thing. It amazes me with the gift that I had had and how it came in handy for me through the younger days. It got me through so many good times too. I just didn’t know what it was.

I sit here in the morning sun and thank god for all that have some into my life to make in into what it is today. All those experiences that have made me a strong, confident, empowered woman. The guides now are spiritual and some earth based as in my friends or my tribe as I like to call them. They are all my touch stone. They ground me. I know that I am in safe hands. I know there is more for me out there and I can hardly wait!!

Please excuse Gail from her blog as she is taking spiritual schooling. Reiki, mediumship, tarot and also the school of life. Doing rather well but head is sometimes up in the clouds. Will be back soon!

As a young girl and being the oldest of four sister and brothers, it was up to me to cook basic meat and potato suppers as Mom and Dad worked long hours. By this I was to put a pot roast in the oven and turn it on and then cut and cook the potatoes, enough for 6 of us. It was to be like this until I moved out at the age of 18. My first night alone in my apartment I ate my supper but had so much leftovers of pot roast and potatoes. You see my brain was still wired to cook for six people. I phoned my mom in tears (yup, tears) and asked her what I should do with the rest of the food. We had a good laugh about what I did and got off the phone. Not being trained in the culinary delights of food I was to go on and burn many a dish…always. It was as if I would prepare and set everything on the stove and then walk away and pretend like it never existed.

Life went on for me and I perfected my technique of cooking, tackling turkey where I left the gizzard bag in the cavity. Who knew? There were times though that I burned food where smoke was thick and black but not enough for the fire department to show up. Oh but let me tell you they eventually did make there way to my home one evening. That eventful night I decided to make a meatloaf and stuck it in a pie tin. Can you imagine as it cooked and splattered oil from the hamburger and spilled over the 2 inch pie plate that it started to burn in the oven. Black smoke hung in the air and my son who was 7 years old at the time came out of his room and said to me, “Supper’s burning…AGAIN!” I made the mistake of opening the oven door and lo and behold the fire started to get bigger. Both of us bumping into each other and both of us yelling at each other to phone the fire department and being the responsible parent I promptly did.

The firemen came running up my front steps, taking control, opened all the doors of my home, got the birds and cat into my sons room where he continued playing Mario Brothers. He was totally blase about the whole situation. Me, on the other hand, was mortified as I walked into my small kitchen and had four of them crouched over peering into the oven and asked what was I burning. “Meatloaf” I answered. “In a pie plate?” one asked. “Do you know that the grease from the meat was overflowing and hit the burners and didn’t I have a meatloaf pan?” I replied that indeed I did but wanted a different shape to it. One of the firemen said, “Oh, its a different shape alright!”

I still continue from time to time burn a dish or two and make myself stay rather close to the kitchen for fear of forgetting and wonder later what is that smell? May I say that this gal loves to eat out and a lot?